Critique My Raid

Hey Guys,

I'm getting a little frustrated with my raid, after the wipes we had tonight on Blade Lord, and am looking for a knowledgeable person or two to look at our log and tell me what exactly we are doing wrong. We lost and picked up a few new raiders recently and our slow progression has stalled at Blade Lord. We clear regular MSV in about an hour, don't really have any problems on Zor'lok, but when we get to Blade Lord it's a wall. My toon is the mage, any advice specifically towards me would also be appreciated.

here is the link to our parse for tonight: ww.worldoflogs.com/reports/o3lqsxwvrqz0vpb9/

It's your healers. Your disc priest used spirit shell ONCE over all wipes. Not only is it their best spell but it happens to be super effective for this fight. Pop it 10 seconds or so before unseen strike, stack some bubbles on the raid and your raids hp will not move.

Either way I'd suggest asking the boomkin to heal and just 3 heal it. This fight isn't a dps check and it's not like the boomkin's dps will be missed. It will make tornado phase easier to manage.

Thanks for the feedback so far, I am gonna direct my raid team to this post, I think we need a little shot in the arm of criticism from a 3rd party. If nothing else, it's always good to get a fresh set of eyes on what were doing and identifying our places to improve.

So far what I have gathered is that the ranged is not spreading properly, and we need to work on our heals.

Thanks for the feedback so far, I am gonna direct my raid team to this post, I think we need a little shot in the arm of criticism from a 3rd party. If nothing else, it's always good to get a fresh set of eyes on what were doing and identifying our places to improve.

So far what I have gathered is that the ranged is not spreading properly, and we need to work on our heals.

Well, the fact that so many people are taking damage from wind step is what is overwhelming your healers. Spirit shell should definitely be used on an unseen strike, but a vast majority of your deaths are coming from windstep. Also, if you can get windstep isolated to only one person every time you should also consider having the person affected by windstep staying out of the unseen strike.

But really focus on keeping range spread out and not stacking too early for the strikes. There are attempts you had where melee and tanks are getting hit with windstep. That should never happen.

If windstep hits more than one person, you failed at it. It's a classic stack / spread mechanic. Spread for windstep and stack for unseen strike. You are basically messing up on a core mechanic of the fight. Thats why your best attempt was 4 min long.

People have mentioned a lot of things here that are excellent advice. Spirit shell is completley OP for this fight. Use it to preshield people before unseen strike. Pala's can talent clemency to HoP the windstep debuff from people. You have 2 palas ^_^

Your palas need to improve quite a bit too.
- One is using seal of truth. Insight is the seal of choice because of the healing it does and the dps loss isn't even noticable now. Thats paladin 101
- As far as I can see neither has battle healer glyphed. If theres any glyph thats mandatory now its that.
- Sacred shield uptime is terrible, really bad. Between 15% and 35% depending on the tank. It's a bigass absorb that grows with vengeance. It should be up as close to 100% as possible. Things like that can (should) be tracked with weakauras. Go to the paladin section here and theres aura strings that they can just import. They give nice visual reminders of when buffs drop off and so on.
- Hustlerdin just seems to be doing stuff wrong. Wrong seal, loads of WoG heals (likely cos of wrong seal / bad uptime on sacred shield / allergy to CD's etc) His dps is also pretty subpar. I'm not the right person to analyse damage logs but they look off.

The mage (you!)
I dropped arcane ages ago but theres a few things to note (and this is only your longest attempt) Your uptime on rune of power is 50%. That has to improve. Once again, poo at arcane currently but wouldnt evocation be better?
You cast arcane barrage 4 times in a 4 min attempt. Shouldnt you be getting more out of that since it builds up to 4 stacks now and then does a big hit?
Your active time is odd too. A 4:28 attempt (258 seconds) and you were active for192 of them (71%) Once again, the closer to 100% the better. Less than 90% on p1 of this fight isn't acceptable.

The disc priest I'd advise to check logs from accomplished healers. His spell choice seems poor. Disc is far more than blind PoH spam but he barely uses that spell. You can't smite your way to victory on progression bosses.

Sorry if the above comes across as a bit too "critiquey" but most points offer something concrete people can work on to see an improvment in their numbers.

Hey there. I'm by no means an expert at the log-thingy, so I'll just give the advice I can for you, as a mage. I can see from the others that you're "spreading" the dot, which is bad. Once that is fixed, you'll only get a set and small amount of that dot. Now, to help the healers, you can reduce that even more. As a mage myself I use Greater Invis. on that fight, as it can remove a dot. If I get the dot, I use Greater Invis. If I get it again, I use Ice Block to remove it. Unlucky enough to get it a third time, hopefully Greater Invis should be off cooldown again. Don't hesistate to say it during the raid. Might help the healers to know they don't have to worry about you.
Now, for the 2nd phase. I find, that if I use blink instantly when I'm propped off by the tornadoes, then I am able to use it again for the last bit up the stairs to him.

Gameplay-wise:
For your end talent both Evocation and Rune of Power work, but as mana = dmg for arcane, you HAVE to make sure to be at around 90-95% uptime with Rune of Power (excluding running time in P2, cause that's just silly). Evocation is fine aswell, but tornadoes during P1 and the spread/stack thing can make it a bit strange. Then again, Rune of Power with movement isn't all that fun either. I personally use Rune of Power for it, but both work fine. Not enough raid-dmg for the Ward.
Use Nether Tempest as it is the highest single-target DMG bomb, and there's only 1 target the whole fight.
I noticed somebody else said you only cleared your stacks 4 times. That's actually ok. There's a playstyle that involves Rune of Power and never resetting your stacks, but instead using scorch when needed to stay above 85% mana at all times. This also makes the use of Missles easier, as you just gotta fire them off whenever you get them

For a small tip for the whole raid. During P2 the boss will switch position at 10%, going to the other end of the room. Dotting him up and start running at around 12% often works out very well, cause then you'll run a long way without having the tornadoes going towards you, but away from you.

As for my "dot removal" tip. Share it. Other classes should be able to do something similar. Paladin bubbles, rogue cloak, a resto druid who has Symbiosis on a mage (and thereby gains Ice Block, if I'm not mistaken). There are many options. As said by others - this is not a DPS race! If the DPS'ers in the group can make sure, that the healers can keep the raid alive, you've got yourself a kill... even if it takes 10. The raid's health is not only the healers' problem.

Edit: I realize this got kinda messy, but I hope you can use some of my non-english-native advice.
Oh, and Temporal shield can be helpfull aswell, used for each Unseen Strike.

I can't stress this enough: Command your disc to use Spirit Shell on every single fight as often as possible.
He should be 10-20% above every other healer or else he's doing something wrong. Spirit Shell is ridiculously overpowered at the moment and nullifies so many mechanics that do raid damage that you can't afford to not use it.
There isn't even any reason for this. Just have him use Spirit Shell all the time. It's our strongest spell by far.

Thanks again for the feedback, really appreciate it. The priest and the pally tank are brand new to us and this was their first raid in MOP, I'm going to definately direct them to take a look at this feed back.

As for what Deja told me about myself, I am running a haste/scorch weave build and only clearing stacks during AT and trying to hit him with a Barrage before unseen strike. Any advice for a higher uptime on rune of power for this fight would be appreciated, between tornados and stacking/unstacking for unseen strike, coupled with moving the boss around the room, im having trouble staying in my RoP for much longer than that.

Hey everyone, I'm the Holy Priest in the above posted parse. It's an alt of mine that was just filling in, and that's maybe a slight bit under-geared (ilvl is 472), but I'm sorta hellbent on making a good healer out of it. I know there was a lot of advice handed out that would be helpful to our disc priest, but I would love any specific comments you may have on the holy priest data you see as well.

And thanks so much for what you posted so far. It can only help our raid team moving forward.

Your palas need to improve quite a bit too.
- One is using seal of truth. Insight is the seal of choice because of the healing it does and the dps loss isn't even noticable now. Thats paladin 101
- As far as I can see neither has battle healer glyphed. If theres any glyph thats mandatory now its that.
- Sacred shield uptime is terrible, really bad. Between 15% and 35% depending on the tank. It's a bigass absorb that grows with vengeance. It should be up as close to 100% as possible. Things like that can (should) be tracked with weakauras. Go to the paladin section here and theres aura strings that they can just import. They give nice visual reminders of when buffs drop off and so on.
- Hustlerdin just seems to be doing stuff wrong. Wrong seal, loads of WoG heals (likely cos of wrong seal / bad uptime on sacred shield / allergy to CD's etc) His dps is also pretty subpar. I'm not the right person to analyse damage logs but they look off.

Just to add to this - both of your paladins are gearing incorrectly.

Stacking stam is frankly incorrect as a tank in this expansion, it goes completely against the grain of "active mitigation".

There are extensive notes on what they could fix in the paladin forum but for some quick notes:

-Don't gem stam unless you are doing heroic modes and really feel like you need it
-Always be hit and expertise capped, this isn't negotiable
-Don't chant stam unless you have to, there are way better options available

Neither of your paladins are gearing for haste, this is arguably their best stat for prot tanking in 10 man past the caps and will make a huge change in their performance - especially self healing and survivability but also dps, threat and holy power generation

Hey everyone, I'm the Holy Priest in the above posted parse. It's an alt of mine that was just filling in, and that's maybe a slight bit under-geared (ilvl is 472), but I'm sorta hellbent on making a good healer out of it. I know there was a lot of advice handed out that would be helpful to our disc priest, but I would love any specific comments you may have on the holy priest data you see as well.

And thanks so much for what you posted so far. It can only help our raid team moving forward.

Go Disc. Prayer of Healing and Spirit Shell will make you top the meters, guaranteed.

If windstep hits more than one person, you failed at it. It's a classic stack / spread mechanic. Spread for windstep and stack for unseen strike. You are basically messing up on a core mechanic of the fight. Thats why your best attempt was 4 min long.

People have mentioned a lot of things here that are excellent advice. Spirit shell is completley OP for this fight. Use it to preshield people before unseen strike. Pala's can talent clemency to HoP the windstep debuff from people. You have 2 palas ^_^

Your palas need to improve quite a bit too.
- One is using seal of truth. Insight is the seal of choice because of the healing it does and the dps loss isn't even noticable now. Thats paladin 101
- As far as I can see neither has battle healer glyphed. If theres any glyph thats mandatory now its that.
- Sacred shield uptime is terrible, really bad. Between 15% and 35% depending on the tank. It's a bigass absorb that grows with vengeance. It should be up as close to 100% as possible. Things like that can (should) be tracked with weakauras. Go to the paladin section here and theres aura strings that they can just import. They give nice visual reminders of when buffs drop off and so on.
- Hustlerdin just seems to be doing stuff wrong. Wrong seal, loads of WoG heals (likely cos of wrong seal / bad uptime on sacred shield / allergy to CD's etc) His dps is also pretty subpar. I'm not the right person to analyse damage logs but they look off.

The mage (you!)
I dropped arcane ages ago but theres a few things to note (and this is only your longest attempt) Your uptime on rune of power is 50%. That has to improve. Once again, poo at arcane currently but wouldnt evocation be better?
You cast arcane barrage 4 times in a 4 min attempt. Shouldnt you be getting more out of that since it builds up to 4 stacks now and then does a big hit?
Your active time is odd too. A 4:28 attempt (258 seconds) and you were active for192 of them (71%) Once again, the closer to 100% the better. Less than 90% on p1 of this fight isn't acceptable.

The disc priest I'd advise to check logs from accomplished healers. His spell choice seems poor. Disc is far more than blind PoH spam but he barely uses that spell. You can't smite your way to victory on progression bosses.

Sorry if the above comes across as a bit too "critiquey" but most points offer something concrete people can work on to see an improvment in their numbers.

Good luck.

This isn't correct. Arcane gets 6 stacks not 4. Invocation probably wouldn't be worth it. His arcane barrages should be low since he is specced into scorch and he is scorch weaving to 6 stack camp. I'm not an expert, but it only should be used when he needs to drop his stacks for some reason or if he has alter time up. Get it off right before it ends and get 6 stacks to continue 6 stack camping.

Your hunter: not reforged/gemmed right. He needs to pay more attention to CDs. He only got 54 AMoC ticks which is less than the two you get from popping readiness at the beginning of the fight!

Wowreforge is good for reforging. Change the glinting gem in his belt and adjust the stats on his upgraded gun to reflect the upgrade and hit optimize.

Originally Posted by thegaultman

Thanks again for the feedback, really appreciate it. The priest and the pally tank are brand new to us and this was their first raid in MOP, I'm going to definately direct them to take a look at this feed back.

As for what Deja told me about myself, I am running a haste/scorch weave build and only clearing stacks during AT and trying to hit him with a Barrage before unseen strike. Any advice for a higher uptime on rune of power for this fight would be appreciated, between tornados and stacking/unstacking for unseen strike, coupled with moving the boss around the room, im having trouble staying in my RoP for much longer than that.

Have your raid spread better. You can most definitely get higher uptime on your RoP. If a tornado comes at you just adjust and pop another RoP down. When they move him it should only be for a bit and you can set it down and do the exact same thing.

Go Disc. Prayer of Healing and Spirit Shell will make you top the meters, guaranteed.

I've been keeping shadow for dailies, but I just made the switch to be Disc/Holy maybe an hour before I read this. While this may be a bit more simplistic, in terms of advice, than I was looking for, I have to admit coming to the same realization.

This fight isn't a dps check and it's not like the boomkin's dps will be missed. It will make tornado phase easier to manage.

It is. If you have not gotten to 20% and have already 5 stacks of intensify, then you better a) have high HP and/or b) damn good healers. As with stacks higher then 5 ramp up Unseen Strike damage. With 5 stacks of intensify you need around 380ish K HP to survive an Unseen Strike.

Besides if you can't push him to 20% around 5 stacks of intensify you will run out of time as you will meet enrage. As it takes some time run to the boss, DPS him, move to another side after 10% and DPS (even if you use the windwall for fast travel...).

Very simple pointers no matter the combination of people you have

a) start with BL
b) set location to drag the boss (if one location has too many tornadoes)/stack on Unseen Strike
c) make sure that people (ranged/healer) don't stand in the paths you plan to move the boss
d) make sure that people are 8 yards apart from each other
e) have people topped for Unseen Strike
f) keep tanks topped for Overwhelming assaults (as either a melee hit can follow right after or just before the Assault)
g) in transition top ppl up when you start running, try to move as group
h) around 11% have all your DPS DoT the boss up, and then step into wind wall (same for your healers), just leave 2 tanks at boss (the DoTs and tanks can bring the boss to 10%)
i) top ppl up on the 20% and 10% phases
j) if there is nothing to heal, have your healers DPS